My friend and I really enjoy making model rockets.
Not just your normal out-of-the-box rockets though.
No, in fact, out of the hundreds we've made over the years not one has ever been a "real" model.
After about 20 near death experiences he got smart and actually bought a how-2 book and then we learned all about a wonderful thing called "balance".
We'd buy the engines and then glue or tape them to whatever we think we can launch into the sky.
We both worked in a pet supply store (we were both store managers) and it sold this clear plastic tube for fish tank filters that were PERFECT for the body of the rocket a little tape or glue for the wings and....... vrrooooommmmm!!!
Ah.....I love the smell of burning sulfur now.
I used to like sending habitrail sections up into the air.
My dream was to send a hamster up into the sky. I even wanted to put one of those leather football helmets on him and goggles too!!!
One day we were both working and it was raining outside and we didn't feel like getting wet so we just fired a few from one end of the store to the other to have them smash against the front windows.
We just picked a time we had no customers and told the staff to "duck".
Good times, good times.....
One day we went to an abandoned armory (big field, lots of trees and old stone buildings). We had a few MONSTER multi staged cluster engine rockets to fire off. I made one that instead of deploying a parachute at the end it popped out a GI Joe with a parachute. Sadly, due to my poor design, GI Joe's parachute never deployed, we saw him go over the hill but his body was never recovered
My friend fired his rocket monstrosity: the "Gestetner XL 27" (don't ask) and just as it started to lift off the rocket cluster exploded sending several E-engines shooting off in all directions. (We really should have had eye goggles and helmets that day).
One engine started a fire in a pile of leaves in the trees nearby. It took us about ten minutes to stamp it all out with our feet. Sneakers were ruined.
Then we went to work.
At work I asked a coworker to call in saying that she was from the town police and that someone reported seeing my friends car drive away after starting a fire in the woods and that the fire spread to a nearby nursery school that had to be evacuated. No one was hurt but that they wanted to talk to my friend to see why he was there (or something to that effect).
She added to the fun and had her boyfriend call.
Her boyfriend was loosely connected to the police department (I forget how) and she said that he knew how they talked and that he could crank up some of the police radio scanners he had at his house for background noise.
After a 3 minute conversation my friend ran out to his car and took off the "bra" covering he had on the front to make his car look different and then came back in with a look of panic on his face and started taking off his shoes because they smelled like smoke!
I almost sh#t myself I was laughing so hard!!
I told him it was a joke and he vowed revenge.
It's been years but I still expect him to get me!
